Rosy Glow

The second thing researchers found, in trying to understand what makes some people’s faces more attractive than others, is that in addition to finding men and women prefer a tint of yellow in Caucasian faces, to enhance healthy appearance people also increased skin redness – the proverbial “rosy glow” in both men and women.

This makes sense evolutionarily. Increased skin vascularization increases skin pinkness, and is associated with increased physical fitness—but is impaired in patients with type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. Increased blood oxygenation, associated with increased aerobic fitness, increases blood redness. Skin blood deoxygenation is associated with cardiac and respiratory illness, and causes a dull, blue tint to the skin. And so, it makes sense that we should prefer mates with a rosy glow.

This may explain why we lost the bone in our penis. “There are certain genetic diseases that affect 100% of the human population,”…and one…“extending to 100% of human males, is the congenital lack of a baculum” (or penile bone). Whereas most mammals and most other primates have a bone in their penis, including all the old world primates, and all the great apes, including our ancestors; but over the last six or seven million years, we lost it—maybe, thinks evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, due to sexual selection by females looking for an honest advertisement of good health in prospective mates. Since “human males lack this bone, and must rely solely on fluid hydraulics to maintain erections,” erection failure is a sensitive early warning of cardiovascular disease.

“It is not implausible that, with natural selection refining their diagnostic skills, females could glean all sorts of clues about a male’s health, and the robustness of his ability to cope with stress, from the tone and bearing of his penis.” Without a bone, “…then only genuinely healthy or strong males could present a really stiff erection, and the females could make an unobstructed diagnosis.”

Yet another reason to eat a heart-healthy diet.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore.

The second thing researchers found, in trying to understand what makes some people’s faces more attractive than others, is that in addition to finding men and women prefer a tint of yellow in Caucasian faces, to enhance healthy appearance people also increased skin redness – the proverbial “rosy glow” in both men and women.

This makes sense evolutionarily. Increased skin vascularization increases skin pinkness, and is associated with increased physical fitness—but is impaired in patients with type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. Increased blood oxygenation, associated with increased aerobic fitness, increases blood redness. Skin blood deoxygenation is associated with cardiac and respiratory illness, and causes a dull, blue tint to the skin. And so, it makes sense that we should prefer mates with a rosy glow.

This may explain why we lost the bone in our penis. “There are certain genetic diseases that affect 100% of the human population,”…and one…“extending to 100% of human males, is the congenital lack of a baculum” (or penile bone). Whereas most mammals and most other primates have a bone in their penis, including all the old world primates, and all the great apes, including our ancestors; but over the last six or seven million years, we lost it—maybe, thinks evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, due to sexual selection by females looking for an honest advertisement of good health in prospective mates. Since “human males lack this bone, and must rely solely on fluid hydraulics to maintain erections,” erection failure is a sensitive early warning of cardiovascular disease.

“It is not implausible that, with natural selection refining their diagnostic skills, females could glean all sorts of clues about a male’s health, and the robustness of his ability to cope with stress, from the tone and bearing of his penis.” Without a bone, “…then only genuinely healthy or strong males could present a really stiff erection, and the females could make an unobstructed diagnosis.”

Yet another reason to eat a heart-healthy diet.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore.

13 responses to “Rosy Glow”

Comment Etiquette

On NutritionFacts.org, you'll find a vibrant community of nutrition enthusiasts, health professionals, and many knowledgeable users seeking to discover the healthiest diet to eat for themselves and their families. As always, our goal is to foster conversations that are insightful, engaging, and most of all, helpful – from the nutrition beginners to the experts in our community.

To do this we need your help, so here are some basic guidelines to get you started.

The Short List

To help maintain and foster a welcoming atmosphere in our comments, please refrain from rude comments, name-calling, and responding to posts that break the rules (see our full Community Guidelines for more details). We will remove any posts in violation of our rules when we see it, which will, unfortunately, include any nicer comments that may have been made in response.

Be respectful and help out our staff and volunteer health supporters by actively not replying to comments that are breaking the rules. Instead, please flag or report them by submitting a ticket to our help desk. NutritionFacts.org is made up of an incredible staff and many dedicated volunteers that work hard to ensure that the comments section runs smoothly and we spend a great deal of time reading comments from our community members.

Have a correction or suggestion for video or blog? Please contact us to let us know. Submitting a correction this way will result in a quicker fix than commenting on a thread with a suggestion or correction.

Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. Be sure to check out the corresponding blog post Erectile dysfunction and diet as well as tomorrow’s video. Also, there are 1,449 subjects covered in my other videos–please feel free to explore them as well!

I was looking for information on Roascea when I came across this video. While good info and entertaining, I am really looking for information on diet/lifestyle and Rosacea.

Since it is identified that “Rosacea is considered an incurable auto-inflammatory skin condition with periodic ups and downs” i thought it fit right in with the other information that you present on other “incurable” conditions. (Having watch 100+ hours of your videos while pacing in my living room)

If I continue a heart healthy plant based diet (Following the middle ground between you and Dr Esselstyn) is there enough research data that would support that this lifestyle will reduce the symptoms of Rosacea?

If it is beneficial for me and my 16 million friends with Rosacea, could you do a video on that?

Hi Andy! I am a volunteer for NutritionFacts and a nutrition student. However, I also have worked for a dermatologist for the last 3 years and see rosacea on a weekly basis. My employer is also plant-based, but for rosacea he recommends staying away from 3 things: caffeine, theobromine, and nicotine. We know what contains caffeine and nicotine, but theobromine is less widely known. Theobromine is in chocolate and tea, so avoiding those things can help with rosacea. Also, spicy foods, which you probably already know. I don’t know much about plant-based diets and rosacea, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they helped with all the anti-inflammatory effects! Hope this helps! :)

The only thing I don’t like here is the reference to Dawkins and evolution. Have you ever noticed that Darwinists (not referring to Dr. Greger here) continually foist this speculative theory on us as if it were a fact, yet no one (not even Dawkins) has ever adduced a single empirical proof for macro-evolution. There is not a shred of empirical proof for macro-evolution, though the proponents have been forth-telling it as truth since we were kids. Again… There is not a shred of empirical proof that men evolved from monkeys or apes.

There are only three possible explanations for the origin of species (or anything, for that matter): Divine intervention (teleology), pantheism (somehow Nature has the miraculous ability to create design and innovation contrary to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, entropy), or … Darwin. Darwinism is a humanist religion that attempts to explain origins without referring to the supernatural. But it has not a shred of proof to support it.

drcobalt: I am a volunteer moderator for this site. Please note: This is not a religious site. This is a site about science. Evolution is about as close to scientific fact as one can get on a subject like that. We will not be debating evolution here. If references to evolution do not sit well with you, just ignore them.

Further comments on the topic will likely be deleted. This website has been derailed before on the religious perspective of evolution, and it benefits no one. Please stick to nutrition when you comment on this site.

I find the theory on loss of the baculum far fetched. If early humans were primarily eating plant based, as Dr. Greger and others suggest, then impotence due to vascular disease would have been very rare indeed.